Universality in human cortical folding across lobes of individual brains

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that different cortical lobes within individual human brains follow a universal scaling law for morphology, supporting the idea of universal processes driving cortical folding despite regional differences.

Contribution

It extends the universal cortical folding scaling law to individual brain regions, showing regional morphological diversity yet adherence to the same law within individuals.

Findings

Different lobes are morphologically diverse but obey the same scaling law.

The scaling law holds across healthy and Alzheimer's-affected brains.

Age-related changes are consistent across lobes, with notable differences in Alzheimer's.

Abstract

Background: We have previously demonstrated that cortical folding across mammalian species follows a universal scaling law that can be derived from a simple theoretical model. The same scaling law has also been shown to hold across brains of our own species, irrespective of age or sex. These results, however, only relate measures of complete cortical hemispheres. There are known systematic variations in morphology between different brain regions, and region-specific changes with age. It is therefore of interest to extend our analyses to different cortical regions, and analyze the scaling law within an individual brain. Methods: To directly compare the morphology of sub-divisions of the cortical surface in a size-independent manner, we base our method on a topological invariant of closed surfaces. We reconstruct variables of a complete hemisphere from each lobe of the brain so that it has the same gyrification index, average thickness and average Gaussian curvature. Results: We show that different lobes are morphologically diverse but obey the same scaling law that was observed across human subjects and across mammalian species. This is also the case for subjects with Alzheimer's disease. The age-dependent offset changes at similar rates for all lobes in healthy subjects, but differs most dramatically in the temporal lobe in Alzheimer's disease. Significance: Our results further support the idea that while morphological parameters can vary locally across the cortical surface/across subjects of the same species/across species, the processes that drive cortical gyrification are universal.